Every day, type something into the keyboard and press “enter.” You could ask a question (“Why does art make me anxious?” or “Where was I 2000 years ago?” or “Where am I now, really?”). You could type a prediction (“Today I will find a quarter” or “I will meet someone from my future yesterday.”). You could type a command (“Remember!”) or even an affirmation (“I am and have always been a confident woman who stops eating when she is full.”). Type whatever you would like to say to yourself in any of your lifetimes or universes, even if you don’t believe in other lifetimes or universes. Watch and wait. Continue reading →

“Light is the left hand of darkness…how did it go? Light, dark. Fear, courage. Cold, warmth. Female, male. It is yourself, Therem. Both and one. A shadow on snow.”

“The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.”

~~~

An Exercise in Handedness:

Hold a different color crayon or marker in each hand. With your dominant hand, write questions that you then allow your non-dominant hand to answer with its different-colored marker. Benign questions (“What do I want for my birthday?”) or charged questions (“How did I feel about my father when I was four?”) will work.[1] Continue reading →

Opening Exercise: Cause yourself physical pain. You could pinch yourself, bang your elbow against the corner of the table, or stab yourself with scissors in the thigh. Sit with the pain. Imagine for it a shape, a color, a texture, a taste (don’t actually taste it, weirdo). Ask yourself, “What has caused this pain?”

Part 1:
“Plantar fasciitis (say “PLAN-ter fash-ee-EYE-tus”) is the most common cause of heel pain. If you strain your plantar fascia, it gets weak, swollen, and irritated (inflamed). Then your heel or the bottom of your foot hurts when you stand or walk. Plantar fasciitis is common in middle-aged people.” ~WebMD

Plantar fasciitis, for those of you don’t know, feels like a toothache in your heel, ala Old Dan Tucker, who died of this ailment. Achilles, despite his dip in the Styx, died of heel injury. Some middle-aged people’s heels hurt so badly they have to use a cane.

Create for yourself a morning ritual. Use at least three elements from each list below in any combination or order that you like. At the end, say, “That was a ritual. By the power vested in me, I performed a ritual.”

Motions:

Turn clockwise (and/or counterclockwise)
Open and close your eyes rapidly
Raise your arms to the ceiling
Tap your third eye
Clap
Pour something from one container into
another
Stir something
Write your initials in the air

Opening Exercise: Laugh. You are standing naked on the edge of a cliff with a lake far below you, arms raised, head back. Your hair is somehow the exact color of ripe orange rind. Dive into the sky, you perfect human being you.

Today’s Passages:

“Everything thing we have, every great achievement has come from the independent work of some independent mind. Every horror and destruction came from attempts to force men into a herd of brainless, soulless robots.” ~from The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand

“That, precisely, is the deadliness of second-handers. They have no concern for facts, ideas, work. They’re concerned only with people. They don’t ask: ‘Is this true?’ They ask: ‘Is this what others think is true?’ Not to judge, but to repeat. Not to do, but to give the impression of doing. Not creation, but show. Not ability, but friendship. Not merit, but pull.” ~from The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand Continue reading →

From Zen teacher Charlotte Joko Beck: “Now our encounters with life, with other people, with events, are like being bumped by an empty rowboat. But we don’t experience life that way. We experience it as though there are people in that other rowboat and we’re really getting clobbered by them.”

From howstuffworks.com: “Psychologists Dr. Leon James and Dr. Diane Nahl say that one factor in road rage is our tendency to concentrate on ourselves while dismissing the communal aspect of driving.” Continue reading →

“But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart, you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath. ~Romans 2:5

“Is God unjust who inflicts wrath? (I speak as a man.) Certainly not! For then how will God judge the world?” ~Romans 3:5-8

“When we are angry, our tendency is to punish the other person.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

According to the New International Version Concordance, there are 269 instances of the word “anger” in the NIV Bible. About 70% (191) of those instances reference God’s anger toward people. I counted.[1]

Godly Anger: The True Story of Gail and Tim

In 2003, Gail Banks left her husband of almost 20 years to pursue a younger man who happened to be walking down the street. Her husband, Reverend Tim Banks, grabbed his gun and ran after Gail, shooting her a lot of times. She died in the hospital three hours later. Rev. Banks, upon his incarceration, shook his head and said, “I was angry. My tendency was to punish her.” This is not the true part. Continue reading →

Opening exercise: Sit in front of a blank wall. Stare at it without blinking and say, over and over, in a robot voice, “I am not [your first name] [your last name]. I am an in-for-ma-tion proc-es-sor.”

Today’s passages:

“Be angry, and do not sin. Meditate within your heart on your bed, and be still. Selah.” ~Psalm 4:4

Opening Exercise: Re-read the tale of Snow White as if Snow White were a leper.

Today’s passage:

Numbers 12:19-20 So the anger of the Lord was aroused against them, and He departed. And when the cloud departed from above the tabernacle, suddenly Miriam became leprous, as white as snow. Then Aaron turned toward Miriam, and there she was, a leper[1].